Yelp & Gobble, Inc: How Restoring the Wild Turkey Spurred on a Game Call Innovat

<p>As young children growing up across America, no one could have predicted their unlikely career paths. They came from the Mississippi lowlands and forests, the hills of Kentucky, Erie County in New York, and North Carolina. They had humble beginnings working in barbershops, restaurants, farming, gunsmithing, and woodworking. They were taught to love the land and appreciate the cycle of life through hunting. While the American wild turkey would be largely absent from the backyards and farms of their youth, they built multi-million dollar game-call businesses rooted in making turkey calls with which to yelp and gobble. </p><p><br></p><p>Wild turkeys had been driven nearly to extinction by the 1920s. But thanks to hunters, landowners, conservation organizations, researchers, and state game agencies who were driving restoration efforts by the 1950s, the proliferation of wild turkeys is now a sensational success story. Soon, millions of wild turkeys returned across the country, and over two million hunters began seeking the hunting products needed to serve turkey at their tables.</p><p><br></p><p>A few enterprising individuals born in a ten-year span from 1942 to 1952 were uniquely positioned at the right time in history. Using cutting-edge materials of construction, technologies, production methods, and marketing tools, they went from cobbling together crude turkey calls on kitchen tables, garage floors, and basements to supplying nationwide retailers. They built iconic outdoo